What follows may seem like a prudish, anachronistic, or even insulting justification of Jesuit Volunteers International's counsel to eschew all "significant relationships" while in the field. Nevertheless, after having almost broken this rule, I more fully understand its purpose, not as a paternalistic norm designed to control the libidos of free-spirited twenty-somethings, but rather as a healthy means of challenging volunteers to question the "amorous" feelings that can fool them into an attraction based more on external stresses than on true romantic chemistry.
It all started with a favor for a friend. In September of last year, a male acquaintance asked me to help a young woman with her application for an April 2008 placement in an au pair program in the US. I said yes and, through my male friend, started to help her with the project. One night, she came to a party we had in our house.
By then, it was late November. I had just greeted the new JV arrivals, while I was preparing to say goodbye to the two
veteran volunteers who had accompanied me through my first year. It was a stressful time, during which I felt like I was being pulled between the needs of my old community and the desire to integrate with the community we would form in 2008. Things seemed to come to a head at this party; and I ended up pouring my soul out to my new friend, talking to her until the wee hours of the morning. A week later, I bought her an ice cream. A few days later, we exchanged gifts for our birthdays (two days apart) and I started thinking about the nature of our friendship.
To be clear: I had all the power to make the decision about what to do next. I was the one with the English skills she wanted. I was the one with the US passport and all the prestige and expectations that come with it. I was the one who had the economic power (my family would visit me later in the month, at a cost out of reach to most Peruvians). I was the super star. As one former JV uncouthly put it, "You are a Backstreet boy for 2 years; enjoy it while you can."
She told me that she got a kick out of hanging out with the tallest man in Tacna. Being around a beautiful girl made me feel special. More disturbingly, at one point, she even told me that we could "be" whatever I wanted us to "be." She was willing to do anything to call herself my girlfriend. This scared the hell out of me. Even after one private encounter, the friendship started to feel so one-way and almost manipulative.
In the midst of these confused feelings, I thought constantly about the JVI handbook, whose regulations I had agreed to uphold. Under JVI guidelines, I would have a week to inform the JVI office if I pursued a "significant relationship." If I procrastinated, it would be the responsibility of my community-mates to fulfill this requirement "out of care and concern for the JV in the relationship."
Assuming that my community or I would inform the office, I began to weigh my chances in a debate with the three members of the JVI Program Team in Washington, DC. I knew that pretty much every year in JVI Tacna´s recent past,
there has been a relationship between a North American and a Peruvian. Some have been fruitful, some quite hurtful, and some have even ended in marriage (as a side note, of the six marriages I know of between North Americans and Peruvians, two have ended in divorce).
I told myself that if I was willing to "take on" the office, I could eventually get my way. I immediately created an adversarial lens with which to view the JVI staff, anticipating a fight to get what I wanted. The poor people in DC hadn´t even done anything to me. And they seem, for the most part, like nice folks. I was definitely acting weirdly.
My arguments for "being with" my friend were based in everything from Bill-Clintonesque semantics ("it depends on what your definition of ´significant´ is") to idiotic nonchalance ("it doesn't mean anything that I have bought her ice cream; I buy ice creams for people all the time; this isn't so serious"). In short, I had an array of rhetorically bankrupt justifications in favor of pursuing a relationship.
Questioning both my misplaced aggression toward the office and my inadequate reasons for starting a relationship, I began to look for a deeper rationale to explain the feelings I was having. I concluded that the stresses of being in Peru were finally playing upon a weakness I rarely acknowledge.
Let me preface this analysis by postulating that a long-term volunteer program like JVI will exacerbate insecurities you didn´t even know you had. If you binge drink in the States, you are more likely to drink excessively in country. If you have a problem with depression, it can be intensified by two years away from home.
For me, my insecurity concerned relationships with women. I do not have too many close, female friends. I have never had a serious girlfriend and felt "defective" for this apparent "failure." Add to this insecurity the pressures of culture shock and the stress of transitioning communities and you find the textbook explanation of why I was seeking a special friendship. I started to look more objectively at the situation and realized that it would be manipulative and unfair to use my friend as a means of dealing with my inquietudes.
In the end, perhaps my mom put the final nail in the coffin on my vacillations as to the future of my "relationship." In the Lima airport, ten minutes before I would say good bye to my family for another year and a half, my Mom took me aside to give me two bits of patented Anne Lynch advice.
First, invoking the counsel passed through Irish mothers for centuries, she told me to "beeeee careful during this coming year" (the Irish brogue turns "be" into a 4 syllable word). Per usual, I have failed to follow her advice.
Second, and more importantly, she told me, "Now, Dermot, if you don´t stop fooling with the emotions of that Peruvian girl, I´ll………………….…….." To keep this blog PG-rated, let´s just say that my mother can be very convincing and horrifyingly creative when she is both angry and holds the moral high ground.
I left Lima with a sober vision of what I would need to tell my friend. I had a hard, but honest talk with her. She accepted the platonic friendship I offered; and I have helped her complete the visa requirements to travel to the US as an au pair. She will be leaving Tacna in a month. I hope that she truly does forgive and understand me.
For better or worse, I have come out of the experience knowing much more about what makes me tick. More importantly, the process has allowed me to realize the value of the JVI handbook: a practical document not written by those who wish to "dictate morality," but rather by those who bring with them decades of experience the problems inherent to long-term distance from home.
I am back at school now enjoying my second year with my Peruvian kids. I wish you all a Happy Easter season and a pleasant spring. I went fishing last week for a Good Friday catch. The Peruvian man I went with said that I would be a better "fisher of men" than fisherman. I didn´t even catch one fish to his 15.
The photos included in this blog are from various recent travels, since returning from Mes de Misión. The first is a shot with my community-mates before boarding our transport home from a recent retreat. We passed 3 cops with all this cargo and were not stopped by one of them. Asies la vida en la America Latina. The second is my appearance as our Savior in a Domingo de Ramos celebration.
Learn more about Dermot here.
